1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to invoices and, more particularly, to telecommunications invoices.
2. Related Art
Interconnection arrangements in the telecommunications industry have a long history. Interconnection first became a contractual issue in 1894 when Alexander Graham Bell's initial patents expired. Beginning in 1894, the Bell System had to enter into interconnecting contracts with independent telephone companies, and the independent telephone companies similarly signed contracts with each other that governed the terms of interconnection.
Telecommunications legislation and regulatory actions in the past few decades in the United States has led to creation of a large number of incumbent local exchange carriers (ILECs), intra exchange carriers (IXCs), and competitive local exchange carriers (CLECs). Through a complex system of regulation, telephone calls are placed through these multi-vendor networks using the vast networks of cooperating companies.
In 1984, AT&T was broken up by antitrust regulators in the U.S., forming a network of local phone companies (the ILECs), and long distance companies (the IXCs). Following the breakup, initially each local loop was monopolized and run by a LEC, typically a Regional Bell Operating Company (RBOC) or an independent telephone company such as GTE. Excluding cellular phones, the local loop was a required input in the production of long distance services, and typically long distance companies did not have their own comparable local loop. In telecommunications, the use of a local exchange incurred charges to originate calls (access origination) or to terminate calls (access termination).
Passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, authorizing competition in the local phone service market, has permitted CLECs to compete with ILECs in providing local exchange services. This competition has created even more companies which may charge for origination or termination.
When a customer places a telephone call, the call may often originate onto an ILEC, may be transported over a network of the ILEC, and/or an IXC's network, and then may be terminated on an ILECs' facilities. If a call originates at an ILEC, is terminated onto a CLEC's facilities, and then is terminated, e.g., at an Internet Service Provider (ISP), then the ILEC owes the CLEC reciprocal compensation for the termination of the call. Thus, reciprocal compensation is basically a settlement mechanism for telephone traffic transferred between two local networks. This arrangement was pursuant to the FCC Interconnection Order. The money follows the calls. Most ISP calls are from users and terminated to ISPs. This potentially means a lot of money flowing from ILECs to CLECs who have ISPs as customers. The ISPs are considered “end users” pursuant to FCC rules, and therefore the call is considered a local call. If a call is considered a long distance transmission, then reciprocal compensation did not apply. Many ILECs may pay CLECs reciprocal compensation.
Because of the many origination and termination fees that are charged by telephone companies, an ILEC, for instance, can receive enormous numbers of often enormously sized invoices from many different individual telecommunications service providers. Individual large companies may also receive many telecommunications services invoices for their entities. The processing of telecommunications invoices which come from many different entities with largely non-uniform billing systems, can be an extremely costly process, which may be fraught with potential billing errors.
A telecommunications carrier may send and receive thousands of invoices each month. Most of these invoices between carriers may be electronic (perhaps 60-80% depending on the carrier). There are several structured industry formats for providing electronic invoices. The structured industry formats include CABS and SECAB formats which are maintained and improved by industry associations. However, many bills are not available in these formats.
Since most companies do not have the means to create separate custom tools to accept any non-standard input format, most carriers still obtain a large proportion of bills on printed paper. Indeed, many bills are still provided in printed form as a large paper document. The result is that every telecommunications carrier spends considerable manual effort to process, audit and pay thousands of manual invoices.
Processing paper invoices is extremely time-consuming and costly. The cost of creating loading programs and maintaining them for multiple carriers is also time consuming and costly. As a result, manual invoices are often paid without any automated auditing or detailed review. The lack of detailed review results in even higher costs and processing errors to telecommunications carriers.